Charlie Gehringer played second base for the Detroit Tigers from 1924 through 1942. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1949, and briefly managed the Tigers in the 1950s. He went on to a successful business career, and died in 1993 at the age of 89.
Charlie was a younger brother of my great-grandfather, making him my great-great-uncle. For a brief time in 1926 he played with another relative of mine, Wilbur Cooper, a left-handed pitching star from the Pittsburgh Pirates, who was at the end of his career.